The two men indicted in an alleged time share scheme that targeted elderly people across the U.S. have had dozens of new charges added to their cases.
Kristopher Chavez and Timothy Hatcher were both indicted on two counts of violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act as well as numerous other counts in December. Chavez also was charged with 47 other counts of theft and criminal impersonation, while Hatcher had 21 theft counts.
But police at the time said they believed there were more victims of the alleged scheme, and both Chavez and Hatcher were indicted by a Boulder County grand jury on new charges on Feb. 16, according to court documents unsealed this week.
Chavez was indicted on 37 new counts of theft and criminal impersonation, while Hatcher was indicted on 11 new counts of theft.
Both men are due for arraignments on April 7.
The two COCCA violations — one for racketeering the other for conspiracy — are both Class 2 felonies punishable by eight to 24 years in prison.
According to the indictment, Chavez, Hatcher and “other persons unknown” to the grand jury operated a time share fraud scheme from 2014 through September 2016.
Investigators said that Hatcher would contact time-share Canl? Bahis owners across the U.S. — most of them elderly — and invite them to a seminar at a local hotel, where he would pitch a proposal wherein the owners would pay a one-time fee to transfer ownership of their time share.
Hatcher claimed to be an account manager with a company called Immediate Acquisitions/Timeshare Transfers, or Properties Exchange, with headquarters in Boulder.
Once the payment was made, the owners would be referred to Chavez — operating under the alias Chris Culhane — to transfer the title out of their name as well as sign paperwork appointing a third party as the “attorney-in-fact” for the transfer.
But according to the indictment, the owners later discovered that their time shares had not been legitimately transferred and that they were still liable for homeowners association and maintenance fees. Because they had named a third party as the attorney for the transfer, many of these owners never received the notifications that they owed payments.
A search of Chavez’s Boulder home revealed a computer on which investigators found thousands of emails he sent under the Culhane alias to time-share owners.
Officials are concerned that there still may be more potential victims who have not come forward. Anyone who may have been a victim is asked to call Boulder Police Detective Traci Cravitz at 303-441-3345.
Mitchell Byars: 303-473-1329, byarsm@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/mitchellbyars
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